Link Popularity Building Via Article Marketing: Explosive Reach

Yes, you can augment this fundamental requirement by submitting your content to major directories, making sure that search engines do index and catalog what you write, posting relevant comments on popular sites with a link back to yours, incentivating others to link back to your content and more.

But in my experience, unless Slashdot, BoingBoing or Wikipedia, to name only the first three that come to mind, put out a direct link to your site, the path to gain a link popularity level that can significantly benefit your traffic and possibly your "authority" (e.g.: Google PageRank) may be a very long one.

Or so I thought.

But then a few weeks ago, around June 15th something unique happened that made very curious and interested in an approach I had discarded as ineffective until now.

I received an email from Jason Potash, announcing the availability of a video clip in which he claimed to have the factual proof of how effective it is to use article submission strategies to rapidly and very significantly increase the online popularity of any site or blog.

I headed off to his site and immediately found what appeared to be a "screencast". That is an animated screen recording clip, showcasing how Jason had made his link popularity for one article grow from a few tens of links to a few thousands in a matter of weeks.

Since the recorded clip contained screens recorded from Google and demonstrating the actual link numbers building up over time, I could also easily verify whether Jason claims where truthful or not.

And, believe it or not, I saw something that I am still amazed to think of. The simple but effective article submission strategy Jason had refined over the years and now converted into a brand new specialized software tool, was indeed working wonders, and there was nothing tricky, or unethical he was doing to make this happen.

To the contrary: once you properly analyze and think over how this article submission tactic works, you may even see, the possibility that this effort can provide, under certain circumstances, a benefit to the community as a whole while giving exposure to good content that may have not found enough visibility otherwise.

In essence: Jason Potash has clearly demonstrated that by systematically submitting your best content articles to the major article directories and announcement lists, a great number of site owners, webmasters and content managers will review and pick your content to republish it on their site.

The benefit of this happening is the fact that at the end of each of your articles, you associate a so-called "resource box" in which a short reference and personal profile of the author is provided along one or more link pointing back to your preferred site.

Thus, on one hand you provide useful content that you have written for others to re-use on their sites and newsletters, on the other, each one of the sites that will use your content will reward you back with a link to your site. This will immediately grow your link popularity, and possibly other relevant indicators as these numbers increase significantly.

The great thing about this strategy, is that it gives more exposure to your valuable content while steadily increasing your overall visibility and exposure online. You do good to others only to receive it back multiplied many times.

As far as I am concerned, and as I have also pointed out to Jason in the 52' audio interview that follows this introduction, freely sharing my content with others comes as second nature to me, and to all those others who like me have placed their content under a Creative Commons license from the very beginning.

What does that mean?

The Creative Commons licenses allow any publisher of content to declare a limited amount of rights for what she publishes, leaving an open, legal and explicit declaration on each article (or recording) that the content can be re-used by others under some specific conditions: you may want to be credited, you may want this work not to be reused to create other commercial products or services, or you may or may not want to allow others to re-mix, edit and create derivative works from it. As you can see the Creative Commons licenses offer a lot of possibilities in making it easier for content publishers to place a license on their content to facilitate open re-use of it.

It is in this very light that I say that this sharing of content comes as second nature to me. As most of my content is already licensed to be re-used and re-published without others even having to write to me to request such permissions, it is only a natural complementary step to adopt Jason approach and push this content in a more direct and pro-active way to other content publishers out there.

The issue is in fact, that nonetheless the great value and impact that CC licenses have created, it is still a small minority of people that knows about these licenses, what they are, recognizes its logo when placed under some publicly accessible content and takes advantage of CC-enabled search engines to find and re-use quality content already licensed for open re-use.

My recommendation to you at this point is only to do two things:

1) Go and look at the screencast that Jason originally recorded and which showcases the type of results you can expect. (Please note: Due to heavy traffic after this post the site above and video have temporarily become inaccessible)

2) Listen to my audio interview with Jason in which I ask, verify and question many of the aspects related to this online promotion approach (here at the bottom of this article).

3) Draw your own conclusions.

Before I hand you to my recorded interview, a few of more things you should know:

a) I am not an affiliate or partner of Jason Potash in any way. I don't receive money or commissions from him, nor I have in the past.

b) This is the first time I talk to him and there has been no preparation relative to the questions I was going to ask him during this interview.

c) After having seen his video recording it has taken me only 10 more minutes of fact checking to decide I wanted to test and try his software to write a review about it. Fr some reasons I ended up buying the wrong tool, called Ezine Announcer, from which you should stay clear of, at least until Jason releases a new version (I haven't seen the new one but it promises to be much better). This is a software Jason has been marketing in the past, but it badly needs updating, and it is not certainly easy-to-use without extensive guidance.

d) Jason Potash, was kind enough to send me a reviewer's complimentary copy of ArticleAnnouncer, the program I wanted to get in the first place, after I wrote to him about my purchase and intention to do a piece on this topic.

e) The new software which he has created comes bundled with a lots of training and learning materials, including workbooks, CD-ROMs and other reading material. This can be extremely useful, if not indispensable to those who are not good writers or who wish to use this online promotion approach without using their own writing skills.

f) ArticleAnnouncer, which I have now been testing for a week, is a nice little piece of software, which is easy to use, straightforward and reliable. What it does is essentially simplify and automate much of the steps needed when needing to submit content articles to relevant article directories, announcement lists or even directly to webmasters and site owners that accept external quality content for republication.

g) From my own experience the software works well and it does deliver on its promises 100%.

but:

How much does it cost?

What are the other benefits it offers?

What are the risks and drawbacks of using this online promotion approach?

Why this idea hasn't been popular before?

How can you verify yourself whether this may work for you?

Can you buy the software without the learning materials?

All of these questions are answered directly by Jason Potash himself in this 52' interview we have had just a few hours ago.

I didn't spare Jason any of the difficult questions or doubts I had in my mind, especially since many of us know well how sneaky and untrusted many professional online marketers have gotten in order to sell us something.

Since Jason may look like as one of such guerrilla marketers that promise tons of traffic by using his tools and techniques, I have taken personal responsibility to go out to him and turn the cards on the table right in front of him, as to make sure that information, facts and not marketing hype gets out of this exchange.

The picture that emerges is one of an online marketer who has not only found an apparently very effective marketing approach, little known or used to this day, but who also wants to characterize himself as a trusted advisor, by providing tangible facts and verifiable proofs that what he has discovered is may be worth gold to those seeking greater exposure and visibility online.

800+ Google links to Jason's site (900+ on MSN, and 2000+ on Yahoo), gained in two months or less, are a living proof that this is something worth finding more about.

To see the original Jason Potash screencast go to: http://www.articleannouncer.com/
(Please note: Due to heavy traffic after this post the site above and video have temporarily become inaccessible)

Update Tue July 12th: Due to the overwhelming amount of traffic that this article generated the ArticleAnnouncer site went down on Sunday. It will be accessible again within a few hours.

Does anyone know how to get an individual article directory listed on the Article Announcer 'submit to' list?

Thanks,
Mike
TellaDoc

2005-12-07 02:26:45

TellaDoc

Does anyone know how to get an individual article directory listed on the Article Announcer 'submit to' list?

Thanks,
Mike
TellaDoc

2005-12-07 02:24:37

TellaDoc

Does anyone know how to get an individual article directory listed on the Article Announcer 'submit to' list?

Thanks,
Mike
TellaDoc

2005-07-25 10:03:07

Pen

I've also used the article directories in the past. Some of them, it has to be said, are a bit chaotic and require paid subscriptions.

2005-07-12 05:07:18

Victor Agreda, Jr.

Robin, I can attest to this firsthand. Check out my URL. No seriously. It's a simple thing. An iPod case. There are dozens of them. But I went to the top 5 in 90 days. By creating a simple how-to, using the correct words, and spreading the word legitimately. Of course, it helped that I wasn't overtly selling anything. And it also helped that at one point I was linked on collegehumor.com... It was a nice ride while it lasted. Postscript: I don't appear in the first 10 pages now! (Searching for ipod cases)

2005-07-09 14:41:36

John Evans (SYNTAGMA)

I use a slightly less formal method. I declare myself a FreeBlogger at the top of my site, then offer the contents freely, provided a short resource box is added. The blog (SYNTAGMA) also comes under a Creative Commons License. Because of variations in the license, I find it helpful to spell out the terms of use. I've also used the article directories in the past. Some of them, it has to be said, are a bit chaotic and require paid subscriptions. Although they work reasonably well, I've stopped using them now. It's just too much work. I'll definitely take a look at the software. Thanks for the steer.